Wales - Regional Weather Discussion

[DeepSnow]

Just seen meto now saying for wales:

Outlook for Thursday to Saturday:

Very windy with heavy rain on Thursday. Brighter but still windy on Friday, and cold with snow showers in places. Winds easing and snow dying out on Saturday.

Better than saying just high ground to the north! Gives a slight hope to those of us in the south i suppose! Though I think we will be lucky to get anything as the showers would have to travel across all the hills and mountains to get to the south!

[soupsurfer7]

BBC Wales Today forecast if anyone missed it (at ~25mins): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj49

A little big vague for the end of the week but snow in northern counties of Wales is mentioned and 'not just on the hills' apparently.

[Scarlet_Snow]

For much of the early 2000s, we had more snow here than most of southern UK, it may be colder in the winter across much of Central Southern England, but quite often it tends to be dry with very little in the way of precipitation, as is often the case during the year. If you look back to the early days of NetWeather you will see a lot of people in those areas, complaining that there was a lack of appreciable snowfall over many years, especially when you consider that before a few years ago, there was a real lack of potent Easterlies, going back maybe 2 decades.

Over the past 2-3 years though, Southern and Eastern parts of England have done fantastically well, so we haven't done comparatively well against any area, as without fail we do worse than Northern parts of the UK.

One previso though is that we can have decent amounts of snowfall, but it can thaw quickly,

Yea your right I do remember them complaining when I first joined years ago, at the time we were enjoying 6 inches of the stuff! On saying that in the past 10 years or so I do remember a few winters where we had nothing at all in our area, not sure if that's been the case in Swansea? The snow depths always seem to be very localised and change dramatically over just a few miles.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Scarlet_Snow

[ourson]

Cardiff (my bit anyway) had a blast of hail about 1/2 an hour ago. Nice to see a bit of "wintery" weather for the first time since the end of last winter. METO seem to be predicting colder weather for the end of the week, and lets be honest, cold leads to the possibility of snow - mild doesnt. Bring on a bit of cold weather, and let's hope the white stuff comes our way sooner or/and later! Have faith peoples - we've had some great winters in the last few years. We're bound to get some interesting weather in the winter of 2011/2012 :S

[J10]

Yea your right I do remember them complaining when I first joined years ago, at the time we were enjoying 6 inches of the stuff! On saying that in the past 10 years or so I do remember a few winters where we had nothing at all in our area, not sure if that's been the case in Swansea? The snow depths always seem to be very localised and change dramatically over just a few miles.

I have got stats going back 13 years, in that time there have been 2 virtually snowless winters, 1999/2000 and 2007/2008 although both years I saw heavy snow, in Dec 1999, there was heavy snow in Bath, and in April 2008 there was heavy snow in Reading.

In that time the average days of falling snow is 9, lying snow of 9, and Met Office snow days of 5. However that is heavily skewed by the last 3 winter averages of 14,18 and 13 respectively. So far in 2011, there has been 1 day of falling snow, 27th January, but no snow has settled during this year. Compare this to 2010, when there were 28 Met Office Snow days.

Altitude helps enormously,lower down snow amounts, of all descriptions are much lower.

[welshgritter]

Got a team up the Rhondda advising that it is sleeting up there. In Neath its raining and very windy! Not cold thou.........................

[snefnug]

Chilly wind and hailstorms in the Ceiriog Valley and my climbing rose still flowering....

[DeepSnow]

Been fairly gusty here today with gusts up to 36mph. Looks like we will miss out on most of the interesting weather this weekend away from North Wales.

[andymusic]

Winds are gonna get fairly nasty over the coming week - tomorrows event into friday with potential for 70mph gusts in Wales + the storm GFS seems to be cooking up for Wales going into Tuesday next week - that one looks even worse with higher wind speeds and seems to be targeted at Wales itself - will be watching the track of that one with great interest - + these storms one by one are dragging the temps down just a little bit each time - we could well see some widespread snow sometime next week!

[DeepSnow]

Winds are gonna get fairly nasty over the coming week - tomorrows event into friday with potential for 70mph gusts in Wales + the storm GFS seems to be cooking up for Wales going into Tuesday next week - that one looks even worse with higher wind speeds and seems to be targeted at Wales itself - will be watching the track of that one with great interest - + these storms one by one are dragging the temps down just a little bit each time - we could well see some widespread snow sometime next week!

Where are you seeing this?

Is this what you are on about next tuesday, as there is now snow for us on there and its hitting Scotland?

[andymusic]

Where are you seeing this?

Is this what you are on about next tuesday, as there is now snow for us on there and its hitting Scotland?

Don't think it knows where it's gonna hit yet - on this morning's output it was a bullseye on Wales with horrendous winds - one to watch over the weekend - more for winds than anything else - but the temps are coming down too

Edited December 7, 2011 by andymusic

[SnowStorm(Jamie)]

Just got finished checking the 12z data from the GFS, UKMO & NAE, you can see tomorrows strong low pressure system on the NAE as it runs Eastwards over the Northern half of Scotland:

http://expertcharts....120809_0712.gif

http://expertcharts....120812_0712.gif

http://expertcharts....120812_0712.gif

The charts from the NAE above show a strong SW flow over Wales with some very strong gusts likely on west & north west coasts. GFS also showing the strong winds across Wales for tomorrow:

http://hw.nwstatic.c...2/24/ukwind.png

heavy rain right across Wales as a cold front sweeps SE as the NAE charts show:

http://expertcharts....120812_0712.gif

http://expertcharts....120815_0712.gif

Now behind this cold front is where we will begin to see the cold polar maritime air come down from the NW. You can see this by the colder upper air temperatures behind the front around -3 and below with the milder temperatures ahead of it from about 0C to 3C: http://expertcharts....120818_0712.gif

As this colder airmass heads south the wintry potential will increase especially in north Wales Friday into Saturday, we can see this with the upper air temperatures over wales at -5C slightly colder (-7C/-6c upper temps) in N Wales with some precipitation gradually moving south east:

http://expertcharts....120906_0712.gif < Upper air temperatures

http://expertcharts....120906_0712.gif <Precipitation

http://expertcharts....120912_0712.gif

The precipitation you see moving down from the north on the NAE charts is likely to be from a trough or front as shown on the Met Office fax charts, both are for the same day (Midday Friday) the one on the left is this mornings issue and the one on the right is the latest 12Z issue:

On the latest issue the sub 528 DAM air is further north but still covering north Wales - so still looking like the north of Wales will see some snow on Friday but rather unlikely further south at this point. Also the latest issue has gone with a occluded front rather than a trough (as per this mornings issue) pushing down from the north. At 48hrs out details can most certainly change on precipitation distribution so it will be interesting to follow.

[alijoe]

Really hope us in Wales get something interesting soon ;-(,,,,,, Keep watching everyone get so excited in the other threads, I do feel a little bit jelious I have to add lol. Just really hope we can get some snow this winter, still early days, so I will toast to that (any excuse as it is nearly xmas).

[TonyH]

At least we are not getting what is about to hit Scotland tomorrow.

[swales]

Just going to throw this in, I hope Net Wx don't mind...

Thur night going in to Fri - just showing some ppn turning more wintry in N Wales

Edited December 7, 2011 by shaunwales

[keithlucky]

At least we are not getting what is about to hit Scotland tomorrow.

Look the scots like a wee bit of wind lol.

[J10]

The Severe Gales are really looking dangerous for Scotland over the nest couple of days. .

[alijoe]

Really hope it downgrades for the wind, obviously for safety reasons first and then for damage to buildings etc. Fingers crossed.

[mikeocarroll]

Well Scotland may be getting the most interesting (/dangerous) weather today but it's still pretty wild out there down here with lots of wind and rain about. Cold front should be moving through here in the next hour or so, expect temps to drop quickly behind that.

Still a good possibility of wintry weather in N Wales tomorrow and maybe a bit further south, the 528 dam line has been slightly further south over the last couple of GFS runs, and sub -5 uppers as well, so if there is precipitation there is a fair chance of snow especially over hills.

The NW flow may produce a few showers but hard to tell if they will come far inland as it is fairly weak.

The following few days remain cold with more possibility of hail/sleetiness Sunday into Monday, and the unsettled weather continues for the forseeable future - for example the storm progged on the 06z GFS at T177 would be pretty serious for much of Wales:

ECM shows a similar storm but slightly later at T192 and has a bif storm for the north at T240. All of this is too far out for it to be forecast with any certainty (expect this to downgrade and/or change track in coming runs) but it gives a flavour that the outlook is unsettled, perhaps slightly warmer after the next few days,

[Blackjack]

Is it me or does reading the models threads make no difference what so ever. It's convincing me more and more that no-one can predict anything beyond 7 days and to be accurate over 48hrs is a push. So many people are convinced that they now what is going to happen based on their fav model or Statospheric warming or whatever, and so many people are contradicting each other based on the same models etc.

Let's face it guys and gals predicting winter weather in the UK is a stab in the dark most of the time.

Most of the talk has gone from "mild and boring winter" to "mega storms" up until Xmas, plus those that recokn we'll have deep prolonged cold and snow for weeks on end.

It's quiet exhusting. Maybe i should ban myself from looking at Models threads.

I am still however tentatively hoping Mark Vogan is correct about the cold. His batting average has been pretty good up until now.

[swales]

Cold front should be moving through here in the next hour or so, expect temps to drop quickly behind that.

Indeed, temp has started to drop away very quickly here now.

[DeepSnow]

All of a sudden the wind has just gone dead here, heavy rain though! Wonder what will happen next week if that low develops!

[andymusic]

Looks like the weather wants to blow us off the planet starting monday night through to about thursday next week - amazing amount of windiness - + one or two overnight periods do get down close to freezing with some heavyish precip about - could be good for a little snow, especially those with some heights!

Edited December 8, 2011 by andymusic

[SnowStorm(Jamie)]

There certainly has been strong winds around Wales today although luckly not as bad as Scotland, some of the Met Office observations are below:

http://www.metoffice...st_weather.html < Mumbles

http://www.metoffice...st_weather.html < Capel Curig

http://www.metoffice...st_weather.html < Aberporth

As these stations show winds have been gusting up to or over 60mph. The cold front is now clearing through and behind this the winds will be turning towards the North West with colder air coming down.

The risk of snow is still present for north Wales tomorrow as shown on the NAE with upper air temperatures at -6/-5C:

http://expertcharts....120915_0812.gif

SUB 528DAM air covering north Wales with dewpoints also below freezing away from immediate coast:

http://expertcharts....120915_0812.gif

http://expertcharts....120915_0812.gif

During this time precipitation will be moving down from the NW caused by an occluded front or trough but this feature will be generally weakening as a ridge of high pressure builds in from the west indicated by the red lines (Isobars) with higher values:

http://expertcharts....120915_0812.gif < Precipitation

http://expertcharts....120915_0812.gif <Surface pressure

http://expertcharts....120918_0812.gif

So i think some snow is likely for north Wales away from the coast, but any accumilations seem unlikely away from the higher ground.

[Gorath]

Bloody hell, wind has picked up some strong gusts here again, and the temperature just dropped 4 degrees C in the last 20 minutes or so.

So, we may not get snow, but damn, this weather is fascinating!